Sunday 15th September, 2019

Teikpitikorpe (GAR), Sept 15, GNA -Thirty
five year old Mary Kpornogbe is disabled but will rather define her
circumstances by creating her own economic base in her remote community of
Teikpitikorpe in the Ada East District in the Greater Accra Region.

She is one of the few persons living with
disability who will brave the odds and not court pity and charity of others to
make ends meet.

The middle sized woman who is confined to a
wheelchair but knowing the challenges of disables, has resolved to help others
starting with the hiring of a hearing and speech impaired woman to assist her
process sea food.

Madam Mary Awudun Kpormogbe would avoid eye
contact because she is obviously shy but would tell the Ghana News Agency that
she was not born disabled.

In Dangme, said, “My mother told me I walked
at seven months but I became sick and was sent to the hospital where I was
given an injection that paralyzed me”.

Madam Kpornogbe ventured into the oyster
processing business five years ago to get enough funds to take care of herself
and a daughter as a single parent.

Showing the GNA how she processed the oysters,
she indicated that she bought the fresh oysters from the river bank in the
community and then hired people to cart it to her residence.

“I boil them, after which I removed the food
from the opened shells, take the sand from it and string it on a stick and
fry’.

But challenges of mobility spring up along
the value chain. After frying, she has to look for a taxi to carry her to the
market to sell or alternatively, carry the large basket of the fried oysters on
her head and travel in she wheel chair on a dusty winding road for several
hundreds of metres to the main Big Ada road to board a high floored mini bus to
Kasseh market.

The road becomes very slippery and dangerous
when it rains making it difficult for her to use her wheelchair as she could
easily tumble.

Emotions took a better part of her at this
stage and with sadness, she said “because I don’t have a leg, I can only manage
to send it to the market, I would have added hawking to it if I could walk”.

According to her, during the close season
for oysters which falls between December and February annually, she engaged in
petty trading.

Touching on the Disability Fund
Distribution, she indicated that she benefitted in 2016 when the Ada East
District Assembly purchased a deep freezer for her adding that her subsequent
request were turned down without any stated reasons.

She appealed to the government to consider
establishing a factory in the district to process and export the oysters
revealing that the shells were used for the manufacture of paints and fish
feed.

She also urged other disabled persons to
work to make a living instead of begging for alms as it was more fulfilling to
make your own money in a dignified manner.

Madam Kpormogbe finally raised her head to
watch us board our bus back to Tema.

One could never tell what was going through
her mind but with such quest for innovation and self-worth, society must lend a
hand to make her life more meaningful.